Video editing timeline considered harmful?
I previously admitted my limited beginner facility in video editing. Along with the suitcase for audio recording, I took our new video camera along to Dallas on Thursday, set it up, pointed it in the right direction and focused on the audio.
The all but ignored camera produced surprisingly good video but mediocre audio. The obvious step was to replace the audio with the mixed multi-track recording.
Except, what about synchronization of the audio and video? SMPTE time code would be prohibitively expensive in a product such as the MPVR+ and likely unrealistic in the iO|14. (Time code may be hidden in the iO|14 MIDI features, but that probably is wishful thinking.)
Forging ahead with Windows Movie Maker, I first imported the mixed multi-track audio, establishing the timeline and synchronization reference. Then I nudged the video clips into the timeline so that the audio from the separate sources (multi-track and video) was almost in sync. Without the reference timeline and the clip timings, getting things even as close as this would have been beyond my capabilities.
Though I used Windows Movie Maker, I think I know how I could have done the same things with the iMovie I have. But iMovie ‘08 eschews timelines. Depending on the reviewer, iMovie ‘08 is a major step forward or backward. Based on the detailed analysis in iLife ’08—Part 2: iMovie—Flawed Genius, both perceptions seem valid.
For now, it doesn’t matter to me, but I’m curious how I would have fudged the audio and video together in the iMovie ‘08 paradigm.